Finding candidates with rare or highly sought-after skills has become one of the biggest challenges facing HR leaders today. In competitive markets, traditional recruiting tactics often fall short, especially when top candidates have multiple opportunities and little incentive to actively job hunt.

Successful organizations are shifting toward relationship-driven recruiting, skills-based hiring and long-term talent pipeline strategies to stand out. To help, 20 members of Forbes Human Resources Council explain how they identify, attract and secure exceptional talent in today’s increasingly competitive hiring landscape.

1. Show Candidates Their Growth Path

Specialized talent often has its choice of where to work. To recruit them, you need to demonstrate how they would fit within your organization—who they would work with, what their responsibilities would be, how they would report their work and what their career growth looks like, among other factors. Help them see themselves in the business and why you’d be happy to have them. – Nicky Hancock, AMS

2. Build Talent Networks Early

Recruiting isn’t a one-time transaction, especially in competitive markets. HR leaders must continually build and nurture networks through industry trade shows, professional groups and community engagement. Strong networks connect great talent to great talent, and when paired with a compelling role and authentic culture, can be a true game-changer. – Erin Johnson, Moog, Inc.

3. Lead With Authentic Culture

Successful recruiting is an extension of a strong organizational culture. When candidates can clearly see and genuinely feel an organization’s values from their very first interaction, it creates a powerful and lasting impression. This authenticity becomes a meaningful differentiator in a crowded market and serves as the foundation for attracting and securing exceptional talent. – Dr. Milpha Blamo, The Minneapolis Foundation

4. Build Pipelines Before Hiring

Rare talent isn’t found through postings; it’s uncovered through intelligence. The best HR leaders map where talent lives, expand beyond perfect profiles and engage passive candidates with a compelling story. It’s not about filling roles; it’s about building a pipeline so you hire from strength, not urgency. – Kathleen Duffy, Duffy Group, Inc.

5. Develop Skills Internally

Every organization, irrespective of size, industry or geography, is struggling with skills shortages. Demand for AI and digital skills is especially high, yet even if companies could afford to buy these skills, there are too few people with the right capabilities. Demand outstrips supply, so the only sustainable solution is to build sought-after skills within the organization. – Nelson Sivalingam, HowNow

6. Personalize The Hiring Experience

The best candidates aren’t hard to find—they’re hard to impress. “Just right” hiring uses behavioral data to shape the experience. For example, give extroverted candidates a full-contact interview day: back-to-back meetings, collaborative energy and people everywhere. Top talent self-selects when they can picture themselves thriving. Ho-hum hiring won’t land them. – Matt Poepsel, The Predictive Index

7. Prioritize Transferable Skills

Hire for soft skills and train the rest when ramp time is low, as soft skills are the hardest thing to teach. In tight markets, you must segment. Build where you can, and buy where you must. Most “rare” isn’t rare; it’s misdefined. Look at adjacent pools and fix your hiring speed. Lengthy recruitment and onboarding processes are where you run the greatest risk of losing top talent. – JacLyn Pagnotta, Rose Associates Inc.

8. Anticipate Future Skill Gaps

Top HR leaders map future skill gaps, build talent pipelines before roles open and engage passive candidates through community presence. We leverage employee networks, skills-based assessments over credentials and move fast, because in competitive markets, the best talent is gone in 72 hours. Skills intelligence turns workforce data into your most powerful weapon. – Sheena Minhas, ST Microelectronics

9. Redefine What Makes Talent Rare

Reframe the problem. This isn’t about finding rare skills—it’s about correctly identifying what is truly rare. The real advantage comes from pattern recognition and conviction: seeing high-trust, high-judgment potential where others see misalignment. Rare talent is defined by how people think, how they build trust and how they operate in complexity. – Julie Hankins, Epista

10. Build A Talent Ecosystem

Rare skills aren’t found—they’re engineered. HR must act as a workforce intelligence engine—fusing internal capability data, market signals and skill adjacency to detect scarce talent early. Top talent doesn’t chase jobs—they chase hard problems, real autonomy and visible impact. Recruitment isn’t a process—it’s a strategic talent ecosystem. – Bernie Yong, Averis Sdn Bhd

11. Recruit Through Communities And Partnerships

Build relationships before needs arise by tapping specialized networks and communities, offering compelling projects and growth opportunities, creating flexible work arrangements and partnering with universities or bootcamps. They also develop internal talent, use targeted outreach on platforms like GitHub or LinkedIn and emphasize mission and culture over just compensation. – Jonathan Westover, Human Capital Innovations

12. Attract Talent Through Relationships

Rare talent isn’t chased. It’s attracted. The most sought-after candidates aren’t just evaluating the role. They’re evaluating leadership, purpose and whether you deliver on your promises. When recruiting shifts from transactional to relational, your reputation becomes your pipeline. – Nicole Cable, C3 Health

13. Align Pay With Rare Skills

Most companies don’t have a true pay system—just a series of individual decisions. That’s where rare-skills hiring breaks: a role needs expertise the band doesn’t price, so a sign-on bonus fills the gap. It works once, then creates drift. The shift now is embedding intelligence at the point of decision, making the downstream equity cost of an offer visible in real time. – Maria Colacurcio, Syndio

14. Lead With Purpose And Respect

Rare talent doesn’t respond to processes; it responds to purpose and respect. Start by defining the real problem, not just the role. Build pipelines before the need, tap into niche networks and engage directly. Move fast, be real about value and personalize the approach. When expertise is understood and respected, the right talent chooses you. – Ankita Singh, Relevance Lab

15. Stay Visible To Passive Talent

Rare talent isn’t found by posting and waiting. The best candidates are passive, busy and not looking. You have to be visible in their world before you need them: in communities, always-on employment branding campaigns and through genuine thought leadership. And when you do reach out, lead with the problem they’d be solving, not the job spec. Exceptional people are attracted to hard, meaningful work. – Ritu Mohanka, VONQ

16. Nurture Passive Talent Pipelines

HR leaders win scarce skills by cultivating talent long before roles open. Dedicated talent scouts focus on passive candidates, building ready pipelines through relationship‑based outreach. Always‑on drip campaigns, sharing insights, culture and growth paths keep interest warm so critical talent is engaged when the moment to hire arrives. – Britton Bloch, Navy Federal

17. Define Skills Instead Of Unicorns

The best way to find rare skills is to stop writing job descriptions that demand unicorns. Define the three capabilities that actually predict success in the role, then build sourcing around verified evidence of those capabilities. When you screen for signal instead of credentials, the talent pool gets wider and the hires get stronger. – Houman Akhavan, GCheck

18. Expand Reach Through Referrals

Tap into employee networks to expand reach and source skilled referrals. Beyond market‑competitive pay and an attractive brand, nothing is more compelling than a trusted peer’s or friend’s endorsement. HR can use intake meetings with hiring teams to identify sources of rare skills (e.g., programs) and launch targeted internal campaigns with premium incentives to encourage referrals. – Jennifer Rozon, McLean & Company

19. Prove Flexibility And Well-Being

At the top of any talent market, pay is baseline; people compare what’s underneath. You win rare skills when you can show well-being coverage that reaches employees’ families, real flexibility and actual data on follow-through, not a brochure. Make the offer evidential, not aspirational. – Fatih Celebi, Meditopia

20. Build Long-Term Candidate Relationships

Leaders can identify and recruit highly sought-after candidates with sought-after skills by being willing to establish an ongoing relationship and dialogue. Keep them informed about company news, share candidates recently hired with them and build an inspiring vision of what it is like to work at your company. These candidates know they are in demand, and it takes patience to pursue them. – Sherrie Suski, Tricon

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